


to be your own altar

by multicorn



Series: an affair and an adventure [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: BDSM, Bloodplay, Bondage, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2173242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multicorn/pseuds/multicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks of all the sharp edges of the world, hitting his skin, burning freezing cutting, and the more he considers everything the more transfixed he feels.  He’s always felt a strange power in working through pain; he’s never thought of it like this before, but maybe it can be physical too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to be your own altar

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally planned to be part eight of the "an affair and an adventure" series, which has since been abandoned, but it should also stand alone. Just know that it's set around five-six weeks after "I Do," and Kurt and Adam's relationship is significantly more of a thing here than it ever was in canon.

It's April in New York City, rain fighting out the days with warmth that will soon coax awake the flower buds, and they're still not exclusive.  Adam doesn't have anyone else right now - he's supposed to be trying, but from what Kurt can see he's not trying too hard - and Kurt's only sort-of someone else is hours away and they haven't gotten to see each other in _weeks_.  (And I love him, I miss him, I love him, Kurt thinks, with every beat of the blood in his veins, but that doesn't change either the hours or the miles and it doesn't now so obviously determine his course of action either.)  So they spend a lot of time together, only sort-of dating or not, and they talk about everything under the sun so it's actually a surprise that it's somehow taken them so long to get around to this.

"What do you think of BDSM?" Adam says one Sunday night when they're making spaghetti.  Luckily Kurt's just swallowed the sauce that he'd been tasting, so at least he doesn't choke.

Well, he thinks.  He's done more things than he has words for; almost everything he did with Blaine they'd been making up as they went along, and it all felt like part of the same fabric but some parts closer than others, but there's still a few things in this category that he knows fit.

"I did some stuff with my ex - with Blaine," he corrects himself, because they're exes now and they're still best friends and they're also something more, he doesn't know how to put all the pieces together but he is trying, and using the same name for all of it is maybe a start.  "Handcuffs, spanking - nothing too heavy.  Why, what do you think of it?"

"Did you like it?" Adam asks.

"Yeah."  Kurt blushes.  "Not all the time, or anything, but - it was really good."  He remembers Blaine kneeling in front of him, held together by a few scraps of metal and cloth, so beautiful, remembers the paradoxical gratefulness in his eyes the first time that Kurt hit him, the explosive relief in his body when he was finally allowed to come surrounded by praise.  It wasn't the only thing, but - there were so many things they had done together that meant so much, and having sex with Adam feels good, it does, or he wouldn't be doing it at all.  But if they could do more, he might want to try....  "How about you?"

"I've played before," Adam says.  "More than you, probably?"  He shrugs.  "I don't need it, and it's not a big deal.  But if you wanted me to tie you up, or something, I'm just saying.  It could be fun."

Kurt's head snaps up.  "What!?"

Adam seems confused, but he doesn't back down.  "We were just talking about BDSM, right?  Did I say something wrong?"

Kurt laughs explosively, collapsing against the counter.  "No, no."  When he gets his breath back, "I can't believe… no, I was tying him up.  And everything.  Not that I don't appreciate the offer, but I mean, have you met me?"

"Of course I have, you're my non-exclusive sort-of-boyfriend," says Adam, running his hand up the side of Kurt's neck with a smile.  Kurt tilts into it, sighing, and Adam comes around the to counter to hold him as they talk.  "It's just that of all the other people I know who are into it… I don't know.  Everyone who's as self-possessed and, like, controlled as you are in everyday life seems to want to be dominated in the bedroom.  So I just assumed - sorry.  I should know not to do that."

"Cause I'm one of a kind?" Kurt teases him, and lets his weight fall back on Adam's shoulders, tilts his head up to maybe get a kiss.

"Cause it makes an ass out of you and me!" Adam says, and Kurt gives him a look and refuses to laugh.  "And cause you're special.  Everyone's special, though, just in a different way."  Kurt laughs at that, and spins away.

 

"So do you want to tie me up?" Adam asks at dinner, and this time Kurt chokes on his water.

"Not really," he says when he can talk again.  "When I did that with Blaine it was more about something that was part of our relationship.  I don't know how to explain, but - no, not like that."

"Okay," Adam says easily, and now Kurt can't help but wonder.  Adam's done things to other people, apparently, things he's not even sure he can imagine, and it makes him curious.  What does it feel like?  Is it good?  What does it do to you?

"Do _you_ want to - to me?" Kurt asks.  He feels a thrill run down his spine at the very idea; he doesn't know what he's offering, but the mystery of it is, it turns out, impossible to resist.

"I don't know," Adam says, and he's thinking too, eyes focused on something off in the distance and Kurt shivers, left alone.  "Controlling someone's pleasure like that - it's one of the best things I know.  It can be really amazing, I've found, if you're both into it.  But if you're not interested, there's no point in trying just for me."

"What if I said I did want to?" Kurt asks.  He touches Adam's foot with his under the table and a current goes all the way through his body, through his heart and out through his fingertips lying on the table all spread out.  He wants so many things.

"We can try, then," Adam says, "just tell me what you want and when."

 

Kurt starts off thinking about it, and he keeps thinking.  Not when he's getting himself off, actually, for all that it's supposed to be a sex thing, but at other times.  It's been added to his roster of things to imagine, along with outfits and musical numbers and food.  If he's going to try being restrained, or - hurt - what does he want to do?

He thinks about the aesthetics, mostly.  Not because the thought of being immobilized scares him (it doesn't, he knows how to hold still), not because the thought of pain scares him (it so doesn't, he could laugh).  But because the decor seems _important_ , somehow, the possibilities of ropes and chains and he imagines the line of his body, kept in a position he could never hold on his own.  He imagines a dark room, as the stage before singing, as for battle.  He feels more alive than he ever has, and he stands taller on his toes when he moves to dance, and when he's alone in his bed not sleeping or after he's come he thinks of stillness and silence and something that's deep and dark and invisible just there beyond his reach.  He thinks of all the sharp edges of the world, hitting his skin, burning freezing cutting, and the more he considers everything the more transfixed he feels.  He's always felt a strange power in working through pain; he's never thought of it like this before, but maybe it can be physical too.

 

When Kurt shows up on Adam's doorstep Friday after class he has two small sterilized knives in a case in his bag, bandaids and antiseptic and gauze bandages too because better safe than sorry.  Several small coils of rope - his handcuffs were left in Ohio, and anyway, they don't seem quite appropriate for this.

Adam greets him with a kiss, warm and familiar, and Kurt melts into it, opening his mouth happily for the gentle assault of Adam's tongue, and gives as good as he gets for a long minute before he pulls away.

"What's the plan for tonight?" Adam asks.

Kurt leans up on his toes and whispers in Adam's ear, " _You're going to have your wicked way with me_."

Adam blinks at him.  "What?"

"Remember last Sunday?"

"Oh."  Adam swallows.  "Yes, I do.  So."  Kurt tucks his head down and looks up through his lashes, patient and coy.  "Why don't you take your coat off, come and help me make dinner, and we'll play afterwards."

Quiet and sure, "okay."

 

The tension's thrumming between them all through dinner, and through the lazy conversation on the couch that follows, just waiting to digest their food.  Adam's mostly as normal, actually, just maybe a little more _on_.  And Kurt's not _worried_ , this isn't that, he can't imagine any way in which this could go wrong.  It's just that he's aware, alert, ears pricked up for a distant sound and skin tingling at the air's faintest currents… and that's what this whole endeavor is for.  So it's a good thing he's ready.

Eventually Adam's conversation about dance classes becomes one-sided, and then comes to a stop, and he clears his throat.  "Do you still want to play?"

Kurt stretches out his arms so the backs of his hands are caught in Adam's strong palms, stretches out his legs and taps the bottom of his feet on the top of Adam's.  Being caught like this feels so good.  "Don't ask me that now."

"… Okay."  Adam gets up.  "I have some things, I need to find them, so why don't you wait for me in the bedroom while I prepare."

Kurt's voice is low, his eyes down to the floor but he doesn't need them to say anything, excitement beating strong down low in his stomach, and he's really going to do this, it's time.  "You should look in my bag."

Adam pulls him up by the elbows, and he lets himself be pulled, doesn't stand, purposefully helpless in the war against gravity and motion until he's dragged onto his feet and comes to rest against Adam's side.  "Can you show me?"

 

Kurt comes awake a little more, because he needs to, when he gets the things out of his bag and lays them out on Adam's kitchen table.  Rope, bandages, knives.

Adam doesn't say anything for a minute, and he starts to breathe out.  Come down.  If they're not going to do this it's okay - even if it was Adam's idea in the first place - it's not _fair_ but he's fine, he'll always be fine -

"Kurt.  Are you okay?" Adam says, and he's reaching across to touch Kurt's face, the corners of Kurt's eyes he hadn't realized were stinging with tears.  This is what happens to him, he supposes, when he tries so hard to be open, it's way too easy to come crashing down.

"I'm fine."  He sniffs because this isn't important - not really - but he'd been ready for something and now he doesn't quite know where to go.

"Hey.  Hey."  Adam's arms come awkwardly around him, still comforting.  "Let me take care of you, okay?"

He nods, and manages a shaky smile.  "Of course."

"Well then."  Adam presses a kiss to the top of his head, then another, and another.  He's probably thinking, Kurt knows by now, because that's how he likes to think.  "Did you want me to use these on you?"  Kurt nods again, grateful that he doesn't have to explain.  "Do you still?"

Kurt looks up with a shock.  "Would you, still?"

"If you're sure," says Adam, tenderly.  "But you haven't scared me off."

"Then, yes," says Kurt, and puts both hands on the table top, carefully avoiding the knives, and leans over to kiss him, thorough and sweet.  Adam comes around the table, then, and they keep kissing for a while, Adam's hands on his back and his arms around him until he almost gets lost in the pleasure, quiet and neverending.  Then Adam parts their lips again, his face still dizzingly close to Kurt's, and asks, "are you ready?"

Kurt pulls away entirely.  Spine straight, chin up, he can steady his breathing in no time, he's learned well enough.  He whispers, up into Adam's ear, " _yes_."

"One last thing," Adam says, a hand on Kurt's shoulder to make him pause.  "Tell me if you don't like anything.  Or if you want to stop?"

Kurt nods, and goes.

 

In the bedroom Kurt bypasses the switch to the ceiling light, and turns on the lamp by the bed.  He stands by it, in the little pool of light, and Adam tells him to undress.  This is real.

He skims out of his clothes, scarf, vest, shirt and undershirt, shoes and socks, pants and underpants, barely feeling their weight on his body as he drops them one by one onto the floor.  He's naked and waiting and not aroused - not exactly - his cock hangs soft between his legs but he can feel it there, feel everything, every inch of skin is bare and exposed not just to touch and love but completely.  Unshielded by another human body.

"You okay there?" Adam asks, and he nods, letting the spell continue to take him.  Adam puts a hand on his shoulder and the heat of it is almost shocking, five little points of pressure and light.  "I'm going to tie your hands together now."  He lifts his head in acceptance, facing nowhere but ahead.  Lets Adam lift his arms from his side, not roughly but firmly, one after the other, and bend them to meet behind his back.  Feels the whisper of rope around one wrist and then the other, a smooth touch that turns into pressure and magic when they must be tied together.  He reaches into his wrists and his hands and down into his fingers and back up again to the point of constraint, feels it there, and slides into the feeling.  "Now get on the bed."

Kurt stands his ground, feet flat, flat on the floor, and doesn't move.  Adam doesn't poke at his back, thankfully, doesn't try to move him at all.  Instead he steps back.  "Is everything good so far?"  Kurt nods, _don't make me try to speak_ not even words in his head but notes so pure and clear, everything's still good and it was going so very well indeed but nothing is broken yet, so far, still good.  "Do you want to keep going?"  Kurt nods his head, a tiny movement, but Adam must see it, because he keeps going too.  "Do you want to be able to get away?"  Kurt shakes his head, violently, he wants to be caught, bound, still and invincible, he doesn't have the words.  Not as if he could leave like this, really, naked and hands bound and the _neighbors_ but - that laughter's on another level, and it's successfully suppressed.  Stay here.  Adam's quiet again for a bit, and that's good, he lets himself be quiet too, taken in the quiet dark of the room with his wrists bound behind him, the power stripped from his hands.  "I'm going to bind your legs - your ankles," Adam says eventually, from beside and behind him.  "Is that okay?"

Kurt nods again, and doesn't quite - fall.  He feels the floor come up through his soles instead, through the bottoms of each one of his toes.  Adam kneels down in front of him and passes the rope around one ankle, then the other, and he can't help but look.  Adam's so beautiful - he's naked too, which Kurt can't believe he hasn't noticed till now - his skin in the lamplight fairly glows, his hair is messy and Kurt wants to hold it like he always does but he _can't_ , and he almost laughs, delighted.  Adam ties the bonds together somehow, behind or between Kurt's legs, he can't see, and he looks up at Kurt with a smile.  "You're so brave."

Which doesn't make any sense.  It's ridiculous, but it doesn't matter, and it's easy enough anyway to let the words slide right around him and past.  When Adam bends down to kiss the skin above the rope again, and then up, and up.  Building little spiral staircases across both of his legs, Kurt keeps himself from gasping at the pleasure of it, the warm and slightly moist pressure of lips less like butterflies than like snails.  Breathes through the kindness of it, steady, as Adam brings up his hands to hold Kurt's calves and knees and kisses farther up.  Adam's speaking through it, too, _you're breathtaking_ , _wonderful_ , _perfect_ , words Kurt's not quite attending to as he feels them rushing past, rustles of leaves in the wind.  Inch by inch, he sinks more solidly into his skin.

Adam pushes all the way up to his knees eventually, and takes Kurt's cock into his mouth, where it's lying soft between his legs.  Kurt - can't push him away.  Can't step back.  He squeaks, and Adam pulls off, sits back, and Kurt manages to find words.  "Don't.  Do that."'

"I'm sorry," Adam says, standing up.  "I didn't mean to - I know that doesn't matter - "

"Adam," Kurt says, broken-voiced, because he's hovering too far away, too purposefully not touching.  He can't reach.

"I'm so sorry," Adam says again.

"Come here," Kurt says.  "Please."

Adam carefully doesn't collapse around him, puts his arms around his shoulders loosely and leans in from over a foot away.  "It's fine.  I'm fine," says Kurt.

"Okay," Adam whispers.

"Hold me?"  Kurt tries to nestle his head into Adam's chest, but it's awkward from where he stands.  When he leans in, though, Adam comes closer, lacing his arms around his back to help him rest, and he shivers, shakes, and Adam holds him up and still.  "We're good.  It's okay."

"I love you," Adam says roughly, and neither of them have said it before, but it's not the time.  Kurt turns his head, searching, blindly, to capture his mouth instead of talking in another kiss.  It turns luxurious; he lets his jaw hang open wide and stretches out with his tongue, pushing it against Adam's mouth, moving heavily as if he's trying to devour as much of Adam as he can.  He lets his teeth scrape in passing against Adam's jaw as he retreats.  "Do you want to keep going?" Adam asks.

"Please."

And Kurt's so glad he doesn't have to ask, so glad that Adam offers, that bringing the tools was answer enough after all.  He can speak, he can scream, he can sing every day, but for this he's allowed just to be ready and wait.  As Adam lets go of him he falls into it again, somehow, so easily, empty space spreading out around his skin and a stiff aching that's beginning to settle in his joints.  He stands before the light, as if he's going to sing, and stays silent.

Adam touches him lightly, a little, all over, back and arms and shoulder blades, the back of his neck which is already straight.  "Perfect," he murmurs meaninglessly, and then, "Kurt.  Do you want me to cut your skin?"

Kurt nods.  Short, breathless; it's only what the whole world has done, over and over, and he wants to catch the feeling to keep and hold.  "Where I can see it," he says, because that's important.  That's all; he's trusting Adam to do the rest of this right.

Adam steps back.  Looking, thinking, Kurt doesn't know, and as he walks around him, considering, Kurt relaxes into waiting.  There's no telling how long he's going to stand here, how long he already has.  His breathing stretches out and out, into nameless infinity, and he doesn't count, doesn't think of anything, simply stands and waits.

When Adam touches his upper arm, on the outside of where it's twisted now, he turns his head but still can't see the spot where Adam's finger meets his skin.  He blinks up, sees Adam watching his face, and as his finger draws a line forward Kurt watches it come into view.  "There," Adam says, with a little tap, and when Kurt glances up again there's a little smile on his face.

Then he's turning, and he's getting the knife - it used to be a paring knife, Kurt thinks, and it will be again after tonight - and he's holding Kurt's arm, gently but firmly, with his other hand, and Kurt doesn't flinch.  He can't help but hold his breath, and then the knife cuts in.

The pain is shocking.  Sharp.  Too much.  He can't think for a second beyond _it hurts, it hurts, it hurts_ , and, as he watches the blood well up on his arm, _should it hurt so much_?  He's cut himself so many times - shaving, cooking, altering clothes - but it's never felt like this.

Adam's fingers come back to his arm, holding a bandage to press to it.  "Wait," he says, and Adam puts the bandage down, touches Kurt instead with his other hand, fingers stroking soothing over the skin to the side of where he cut.  Kurt can't stop watching it, fascinated.  Done, the pain is duller, now, but stronger if anything, and he suspects it's not going to stop anytime soon.

"You're so beautiful," Adam says, and for a moment Kurt wants to scream, but he can't help but feel that it's true.  Standing bound and posed like this, watching the brightness of the red blood gather and start to drip on his skin, he feels like a statue, Galatea, just come to life.  And frozen in time.  For he doesn't know what to do now; coming this far is as far as he'd planned.  Adam rubs his arm again, cool touch on overheated skin, and says, "let me take care of you."

Kurt nods - he doesn't know what to say.  And Adam lowers his head.  The shadow he casts obscures the cut, and Kurt can't see it for a second, until he's almost touching Kurt's arm, and then he sticks his tongue out and - it's wet, and his skin's wet also, different from the slickness of blood - and licks the blood away.  It's shocking, again.  And it makes Kurt feel the connection, his own life's blood in Adam's mouth, as Adam continues and licks his arm clean with the gentlest open-mouth kiss, and the sense of isolation that he's been building up breaks.  He's so glad, so relieved, that Adam is here.

He smiles, tremulously, for the first time since this has started, when Adam looks up at him.  "Was that what you wanted?" Adam asks.  There's blood on his lip, like a vampire, but he's never looked more alive.  And when Kurt looks back down at his arm, of course it's bleeding again.

"Yes," he says.  It wasn't what he'd planned, not quite, he hadn't known just how it would feel.  But it was better, in a way.  And now that he knows this feeling too, he's ready to do it right.  "One more time?"

The look on Adam's face is almost admiring for a second, before it goes serious again, and then he picks up the larger knife.  "Wait," Kurt says, "not till I'm ready."

"Okay," Adam says, somewhere between solemn and kind.  "Tell me when."  He's watching Kurt, Kurt can feel his attention, but he can't look back.  Not right now.  He needs to recapture the spell.  Think of why he was doing this - the pain in his arm throbs, hasn't stopped at all now he notices, and when he looks he sees that it's still bleeding.  Still hurting.  Okay.

He thinks of everything he wants to cut.  Lima, and the ties that bind him to it still.  Not Blaine, never Blaine, not his father or his family, but… the Lima in his head and his heart.  Failure, and the invisible weight that sometimes holds him pinned to the ground.  "Now," he says.  He's holding everything firm in his mind, and he's ready.

The second cut will be above the first, he sees, and the pain is just as sharp this time, just as all-consuming, for a second.  But he holds the pain and it's _his,_ to hurt him but also do what he wants with.  He breathes out, in victory, and then drops his eyes closed, his chin to his neck.

"Are you okay?" Adam asks.

He has to force himself to look up, but the love he sees there helps him stay.  "Of course."

"Shall I patch you up now?"

"Untie me first," Kurt says, but he smiles, and he feels like he's been rescued from pirates when Adam kneels down to obey.  He cranes his neck to look at his wound, and when Adam's untied his feet and finally released his arms he swings it in front of him, to look at more head-on.  It hurts, of course it hasn't stopped, he doesn't mind but it doesn't mean as much anymore, it doesn't look beautiful but kind of silly.  But it's his, and he's fond of it.

 

He doesn't need to think very much.

Adam helps him to the bed, stiff-legged from too much stillness, and cleans the cuts in a more othodox fashion, then bandages them with the materials Kurt had brought.  Then he moves back down to massage Kurt's wrists, as the feeling comes back into them and they start to feel sore too, and then his ankles where they were tied.  Kurt closes his eyes again and again and feels himself sink right into the bed, exhausted beyond words and sense, despite the early hour.  He feels as if he's done something hard, and exhilarating, and exhausting, and he only wants to go to sleep, and he drifts off.

Adam brings him a cup of cold milk, and a plate of sliced peaches, and he wakes up to make himself eat them; he could've sworn he wasn't hungry, but they taste amazing, fresh and sweet.  He knows this part, of course, from the other side.  But he never knew just how much better than usual the food felt.

He's surprised, still, again, at how much he didn't anticipate.  At how strong the pain really was, when it came to it, how the reality had overpowered his thoughts and forced them to regroup.  At the final cutting, the link that he'd made, because he had been looking for something and he'd had no idea what until almost the final moment.  But it feels right.  And other things… his brain whirs faintly, trying to process, but there's not much left to power it; he'll have to wait for later.

He doesn't sleep, but he loses track altogether of time, and Adam slides into bed next to him, at some point.  Kurt wriggles close - not quite touching, but close enough to feel his body's warmth - and he strokes a hand over Kurt's side.  "You good?" he asks.

"Mmm," Kurt says, and then, because words are probably called for, "yes.  Thank you."  He stretches out his arms over his head, and angles his face for a kiss.  He gets one, of course.  "Can we go to sleep now?  Talk later?"

"Of course," Adam says, and turns on his side to face him.  "Good night."

Kurt blinks, and feels awake again for a second.  Content and finished, floating and free.


End file.
